


the (misplaced puzzle piece) in me

by notdrunkenough



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 02:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20770871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notdrunkenough/pseuds/notdrunkenough
Summary: Always waiting for you—beneath a shared sky.





	the (misplaced puzzle piece) in me

  
He wants to see the world, but not quite in the romantic way it sounds. He wants to know if everyone feels as out of place as he does. He wants to know if there a place for him that simply isn’t where he is, and if, maybe, he’s simply a puzzle piece in the wrong box.

Sora cries, and begs him to stay. He says that this is where Riku fits, between him and Kairi on their island. They’re whole together. Pieces of different width, shape and color but they fit together just fine. All Riku hears is, _Please please don’t leave me again_, and swells with what he won't admit is guilt.

Kairi cries and begs, but not quite as profusely as Sora. She’s a Princess in the end, and must maintain her dignity and hold her head high. She crosses her arms and tries to sound diplomatic while gritting her teeth, “If you must, you must.”

All he hears is** But don’t you dare—**but he does. He must.

He goes to Radiant Garden, but doesn’t fit. He’s not a hero, he’s not a villain and he’s not dead.

“Then go home,” growls Aerith as she looks down on him lying lazily in her church, “before you are.” She tends to the wilting flowers in her fingertips and tiptoes around orchards.

He moves on.

He goes to Transverse Town, but doesn’t fit. He’s not a refugee, he’s not a survivor and he’s not alone.

“Go home,” says a boy Riku thinks he knows from somewhere, “before you are.” He looks up at him from a wooden bench as they await the boats taking people home—alone.

Riku takes another ship.

♥

_Be a hero and break, become a villain and die, it doesn’t matter, because you’ll always have a home to come home to. No matter what you become, you’ll never become alone. We fit, not jigsaw perfect, but as well as we will ever want to. We love you._

_Waiting for you, beneath a shared sky, _

_KS_

♥

Kairi writes this letter, Riku knows, because those written by Sora just say,

**come home, come home, why do you always leave me**, over and over again.

Her handwriting shakes with more sour bitterness than Sora’s ever do, because no matter how much she itches too, she just can’t write** I HATE YOU I HATE YOU TRAITOR BETRAYER YOU ALWAYS LEAVE US**.

She <strike>they</strike> loves him, she just forgets that sometimes.

That’s not the point. That’s not what this is about.

It's not about being a hero, a villain, dead, or being alone. It’s not about Sora, and it's not about Kairi, and not about them being together on their island in the middle of nowhere. It’s not about his parents or the life he abandoned—

It’s just a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit properly and probably never will, but the box still sits on the shelf above his head, incomplete and annoys him. It’s about knowing why the edges won’t fit—it’s silly, really.

It's not about anything.

It’s meaningless.

He tries to cut off the excess—bitterness, hatred, jealousy—the parts that don’t let him stay in sync with them. He realizes he’s not a proper person without them.

He tries to fill the space—fake smiles, laughter, immaturity—the parts that they enjoy together. He realizes faking them doesn’t make them real unless you feel them inside you. He realizes he doesn’t need them to be real.

He’s being silly.

He wants to go home.

He wakes up, sweating one morning, in a room that he doesn’t remember—

_The water blurs his vision. His eyes are barely open. A girl in white is standing there, silently._

_She smiles cautiously, and her hair curls as she moves, even slightly, closer. She bites her bottom lip, strapping her teeth along the already wet skin. That only thing he can do is to watch her blankly, memorizing her everything, grasping hold of all the stifled words from those lips, blurred by the water and glass between them._

“_I want you to know,” she whispers mutely, “that it’s okay,” and he only knows because he calculates the movement of her lips the gargled mixture of the sounds and imagines her voice: beautiful, soft, loving. Her fingertips touching the glass smoothly, shining blue eyes that would be heaven’s sky, “its okay that you don’t have something they do. It’s okay because even without it, I’m sure—”_

_She pushes against the glass, leaning closer to him warmly, lightly, and the world spins._

“—_someone loves you.”_

—and packs his bags.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and for the first time, is not sick of saying those words. Sora wraps his arms around him and doesn’t care for ‘**I’M SORRY**’s because all he hears is, **I’****m back, I’m home**.

Kairi slaps him, and is done with it.

He probably deserved that.

  
/_for aerith;_

“That new company looks interesting,” he says, sitting on the bench, waiting for the next ship out, “You should get work there; probably pay more than selling flowers.”

She says nothing and stands. Handing him a flower, she takes her leave, “Take care, Riku.”

He waits alone, watches the smoke from the factory fill the air and passes a sign looking for soldiers, before he leaves—forever.

**THEIR WORLDS MUST GO, FOLLOW THE COURSE THEY WERE MEANT TO.**

Cinderella must lose her father twice (once to another woman and again to death), go to ball she’s not prepared for, and fall in love.

Aurora must be cursed by a bitter witch, fall in love, prick her finger on a spinning wheel, sleep forever—but be saved.

Aerith must find out what she is, go on an adventure with a boy she’s barely met, fall in love (second times the charm), save the world and di—

They must go on.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've had this in my files since 2014. I've always sorta liked it and could never bring myself to delete it. So this is my celebratory "I still don't have a PS4 to play Kingdom Hearts 3 or FF7 Remake yaaay" fic.


End file.
